


Lawyers on a Roof

by titC



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23249944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: Foggy Nelson is a simple guy, and he's not too fond of roaming rooftops. He's going to anyway.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 9
Kudos: 61
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Marvel Fluff Bingo





	Lawyers on a Roof

**Author's Note:**

> Bit thanks to [PixelByPixel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixelbypixel) for the Beta ♥  
> Fills my Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt _trail of blood_ and my Marvel Fluff Bingo prompt _bed sharing_.

Foggy Nelson wasn’t a complicated guy. Really.

He liked food, he liked his job, he liked being with his family and he liked being with his friends. Even when said friends were the biggest pains in the ass. At least they kept surprising him: he’d never have expected Karen to always end up pissing off the worst people when he first met her, although that was precisely the reason why they crossed paths in the first place. And Brett? Well, when they’d been kids playing around the block Brett had always wanted to be the robber, the bad guy, the _cool_ guy. Guess who ended a cop? Hint: it wasn’t the kid who’d played at being one.

And then, of course, there was Matt. That awkward, gangly student with the dazzling smile and shapeless sweaters, whose two main modes (or so Foggy had believed back when they first got to know each other) were _Charming the Socks Off of Everyone in a 2-Mile Radius (Especially the Grannies)_ and _Giant Dork Will Defend the Innocent or Die Trying_.

Well, it hadn’t been wrong; it was just that during that first year, Foggy had missed the constant, simmering anger and the lurking dark moods that pulled Matt down and away. Around the time when Elektra crashed into their lives and almost entirely fucked up Matt’s, Foggy had started to witness how far his moods would swing. For the first few months with her Matt had been on a cloud, but he’d also been terribly reckless and had skipped class so often a few teachers had reached out to Foggy. Then, after the inevitable breakup, had come the depression. Dark times, Foggy remembered. They’d never really talked about it afterward.

Foggy had done what he could, and in the end that _Murdocks always get back up_ instinct – or maybe pride – had kicked in. Matt had been fine after that; he’d gone back to Regular Matt. Foggy had thought it had all been because of Elektra, that the wild and dark streaks he’d discovered had been flukes.

But – to be truly honest – when he’d finally learned about Daredevil, Foggy hadn’t been that surprised after the initial anger. Matt really _was_ that reckless; he _was_ that adrenaline junkie who willingly shouldered a burden he’d put on himself like the martyr he was (Catholic school hadn’t helped, Foggy was sure). Matt _was_ that violent, that secretive, that much of a hot mess, too. His life had been even more of a trauma conga line than Foggy had previously known, and Matt would never set foot in a therapist’s office; oh, no, not Matt Murdock. Better to slug it out with criminals before confessing some (but not all!) of his sins to his priest. And now that Father Lantom was dead, he kept even more of them to himself.

At least there was the nun that Foggy pretended he didn’t know was Matt’s mom. Karen had spilled because she could never resist gossip – that was what had made her so good at the Bulletin, after all – but Foggy still pretended he didn’t know. He just hoped Matt would tell him, one day. But Matt wasn’t known for being open, even if he was working on it. So Matt went out at night looking for criminals; he did what good he could with his fists, and if he lacked all sense of self-preservation at least he was trying to ask for help. Sometimes. Look, it was a work in progress, all right? Progress being the key word, even if it was slow. Matt was _trying_ , was what Foggy focused on.

Still, it was because of Matt’s… Matt-ness that Foggy found himself running through the Kitchen, looking for one particular tight-lipped idiot who had been caught on camera the night before, staggering on the edge of a roof, one hand over his side. _DD saved my life!!!_ the caption read. _Couldn’t get the fight on cam but just found him again <3 Thx DD! Hope U got smo 2 patch U up! _There was also an ungodly number of hearts, stars, and other emojis whose meaning Foggy couldn't even fathom. He hoped the peach one didn’t mean what he feared it meant, though; the girl looked way too young on her Instagram profile to be having this kind of thoughts about Matt’s… peach. Not that he disagreed – he sure didn’t – but… moving on.

So no, Matt being hurt wasn’t – Foggy hated that this was a normal thought, now – it wasn’t the really worrying part, no. Matt came to work visibly injured several times a week; he hid it as well as he could but when it was just the three of them, he didn’t fake as much as he used to, before. He limped a bit; he changed a dressing, or he went to St. Agnes to get a wound cared for. He pretended to listen when Karen or Foggy told him to take it easy for a few days; he even took a night off, sometimes, but it never lasted.

Yet all the promises came with one caveat: if Matt ever heard someone cry for help, wound or no wound, he’d be out the window before he’d finished pulling his mask down. He couldn't resist it and he couldn't not hear the cries, and Foggy had learned that there was nothing to be done about it. Matt would hear, and Matt would go. He couldn’t help it; he’d tried and look how it had turned out, after all.

So when Foggy saw that video as he was buttering his toast, he remembered the previous day’s promises: _I’ll let it heal, Foggy. I’m not going out tonight, I swear; it would be suicide. Can’t die before we win this case, right?_ Foggy had nodded and smiled and patted Matt’s shoulder, gingerly; the idiot had taken on too many criminals at the same time the night before. The fight had started against four, Matt had said as if that had been a perfectly reasonable number of opponents to face, but soon five more had joined the fray and Matt was good, yeah, but nine guys with knives and bats and metal bars were still too much for anyone, even blind ninjas.

Well, Matt had disagreed, of course. “Stick would have taken them out without breaking a sweat, you know.”

Foggy doubted that, but it hadn’t been the time to challenge Matt’s oh-so-healthy mixture of resentment and admiration for his old asshole mentor. “Look, you got out and managed to get some intel to Brett, right? Nothing to be ashamed of, Matty; you did good, real good.”

Matty had felt ashamed anyway, because God forbid he ever felt like he was good enough for anything, deep down. He was lucky he got out with, all things considered, minimal injuries: bad scrapes and deep bruising, cuts that had mostly gone through muscle, a sprained wrist. A good knock on the head too; he’d seemed a bit more blind than usual today – bumping into Karen’s desk and such. His ears were probably ringing, not that he’d admit it if it had happened. Somehow all his teeth were still there after years of fighting, something which Foggy was secretly impressed by. But Matt had still been moving like a creaky old guy who’d just gotten out of a car crash and Foggy had absolutely not expected that video or rather, he hadn’t wanted to consider that Matt would go out anyway, whatever his state. What he’d _hoped for_ had been Matt on his couch, not Matt on the roofs.

Matt had gone on the roofs anyway.

And the way he was holding his side in the video, right where the deepest gash had been… he’d reopened the wound, of course he had. Not too worried yet but starting to be, Foggy tried calling Matt’s phone, and again, and again ten minutes later in case he had been in the shower before, but Matt never answered. So Foggy left his coffee on the kitchen counter and hurried to Matt’s apartment, because maybe Matt was home – injured, but home – and he’d call Claire or St. Agnes, get him stitched up so he kept the blood inside for once, and sit on him until he promised to stay in bed until the weekend.

But Matt wasn’t home.

His cane was hanging off a peg near the door, his day clothes were on the chair in the corner of his bedroom as usual, his regular phone on his bedside table. And Matt… was nowhere. Shit. Foggy started with a call.

“Hey Brett, light of my life!”

As per the rules established in 1995, Brett started their conversation with a deep, deep sigh. “Foggy. What do you want this time?”

How unfair. “I resent the implications of that question, buddy. But since you’re asking, did you see that video of Daredevil?”

“Everybody did. Guy looked pretty banged up but that’s his thing, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. Still, I was wondering – has anyone reported… anything?”

“Lots of people have reported lots of things, Foggy. This is New York, remember?”

“Right.” Foggy cleared his throat. “So, no guys in a mask in the hospital, or found dead at the foot of some building?”

“Not that I’ve heard, no. What, you two had a hot date and he ghosted you?”

“Hey!” Not that Matt wasn’t hot or that he’d never pulled disappearing acts, but… it wasn’t like that. This time.

“I know you guys work together, not that I like it. Look, if I hear anything I’ll give you a ring, okay?”

“Yeah, thanks, Brett. Knew I could count on you.”

Brett grunted. “Don’t let it go to your head. Got to go, _I_ got a real job.”

Foggy made the appropriate noises on automatic before hanging up. Matt hadn’t been found dead or dying anywhere (yet), but whether this was a good or a bad thing was yet to be determined. Well, time for some manly Foggy action, right? He looked up the short flight of stairs to the roof access door.

“You’re going to owe me so much,” he told no one.

And then he went to the roof.

Foggy wasn’t any sort of ninja, blind or otherwise, but he was smart (although current circumstances and his choices of friends and career might suggest otherwise). And Matt – well, Matt _was_ a ninja, and he didn't always think before doing anything. Foggy sighed. He decided to trust that Matt had meant his promises to stay home, and that he’d ran out only because the girl had cried for help and he hadn’t been able to ignore it, injuries or not. He’d probably, _hopefully_ , not gone on a full route around the Kitchen but had just followed his ears to where someone had been in dire need of an ass-kicking. He’d then obviously delivered said ass-kicking since the girl had been rescued, before heading back for home.

So, Foggy decided, he shouldn’t be too far. If he’d fallen from a roof, there was a high probability someone would have found him by now; the garbage trucks or the shops checking deliveries or… right. Foggy would first go with, Matt was somewhere up there, on a roof, unable to get back home _but alive_. He refused to consider any other option. Matt was alive, just too tired or in too much pain to reach his apartment on his own. He was aware of his limits or at least he’d been aware 24 hours earlier, therefore he would have chosen an easier path than usual: up on the rooftops to stay mostly out of sight but nothing that demanded crazy acrobatics or long jumps. Well, Matt’s idea of what constituted _crazy acrobatics_ was definitely not Foggy’s, but… yeah. At least it was a plan.

Foggy looked around. He just had to trace back Matt’s path. _Just_ , ha; but you had to start somewhere. First, he sent a text to Karen so she’d man the fort at the office this morning and told her he’d keep her in the loop regarding Matt; that done, he braced himself for all the ladders, stairs, and fire escapes he was about to climb. Ugh. This was going to _suck_.

Too many. The exact number of ladders, stairs, and fire escapes Foggy had to climb was precisely too many. He just knew he was red in the face and sweating in a way that reminded him why he hated exercise for exercise’s sake, contrary to _some_ people. He should have known something was fishy with Matt from week one; Matt had been a beanpole but one with the kind of impressive definition that didn’t come just from being twenty and not eating enough. He’d gone to the campus gym often and, Foggy realized later, also to Fogwell’s in the middle of the night. He hadn’t thought much of it; of course a blind guy wouldn't go boxing other guys while the gym was busy, right? It had made sense, what with his father and all. Well, it _had_ made sense, but not for the reasons Foggy had imagined.

Yeah, Matt loved sweating and bleeding and hurting, and right now Foggy was ticking two of those and they were two ticked boxes too many. As soon as he’d found Matt and dragged him back home and made sure he wasn’t dying, he’d give him an earful. _You’re pretty, but you’re not_ that _pretty_ , Foggy mumbled as he puffed up stairs. _You may have abs of steel and thighs of iron but I’m 50% donuts and 50% coffee, man,_ he also tried. Rehearsing what he wanted to tell Matt fueled him as he suffered up and down the low-rises around Matt’s building, and it distracted him from the memory of finding him half-dead with a cracked helmet. Or from the time he’d found him – okay, that stain there on the roof access wall was suspiciously rust-colored and there was nothing metallic nearby to explain it. Okay.

Foggy took a deep breath, and got closer.

Yup, it definitely looked like blood; it _was_ blood. Foggy knew blood; he’d grown up in a butcher shop, after all. The stain was about chest height and vaguely hand-shaped, if you squinted; Foggy didn’t think he needed to scrape a finger on it to give it a taste check like manly dudes did on TV. Ew. He walked around the wall and found another stain, then a few feet ahead more blood, this time on the roof itself. Matt, or whoever it was, had fallen down here; he’d either caught himself on bloody hands or just… bled there. But there was no body, therefore he’d gone on. Got up and away; Foggy just had to find him.

Wall, wall, roof… he followed the direction and saw the next building was, in fact, flush with this one, just a bit lower. Matt would have jumped because he acted like he’d never heard of a sprained ankle, but… yeah, there was a ladder there. More exercise, of course. Well, at least it wasn’t climbing all the way down then up again: small mercies, right?

Foggy found more blood there, a trail to follow: at the foot of the ladder, on a chimney, a large stain near the ledge that ran around the roof… He’d stopped there. Foggy’s heart was beating a bit too fast, and not from all the climbing and running around. Matt’s apartment was four blocks over, and while he’d found blood there was no sign of Matt himself. Foggy dared to look down over the ledge: there was no one there, no body on the ground or draped over the dumpster parked right under. Okay, good; that was good, right? But… Foggy narrowed his eyes.

Oh, shit. Yep, _that_ was someone there, half-way down the fire escape, a pile of limbs before a flight of steps.

Foggy ran.

“Matt, buddy.”

He was pale, clammy, and his sweatshirt – the idiot had gone out in what basically amounted to his PJs, an old shirt tied around his head, and hastily-tied Converse – was sticky with blood. Worse, he was so out of it he didn’t answer, unless you counted a low groan as an answer.

“Buddy, this bloody breadcrumbs chase you put me on? I resent it, I do.” Foggy pushed the makeshift mask up and tried not to freak out too much when he saw Matt’s eyes. They never really focused, obviously, but they also never roamed everywhere that much. “Hey, no, don’t close your … shit.” Matt’s eyes had rolled up and he’d gone all limp.

Well, Foggy wasn’t going to carry him anywhere; time for backup – okay, time to _call_ for backup.

“St. Agnes orphanage, Sister Margaret speaking.”

“Hey, uh, this is Foggy. Foggy Nelson? I’m…”

“Matthew’s friend, yes.” He heard her sigh. “What has he done to himself now?”

“I, uh. It’s… do you have a car?” Karen didn’t use hers to come to work, and he couldn't really ask his parents or Theo to come and… learn about Matt. “St. Agnes does, yes. Where are you?” She didn’t waste time, did she.

Well, he and Sister Maggie had never been properly introduced; no time like when you drove your half-dead, unconscious, bleeding friend around in a church-approved vehicle, right?

*

Foggy hadn’t been looking forward to manhandling Matt up the stairs to his apartment, but sisters must have mysterious but effective powers over Good Catholic Boys – although whether Matt counted as one was debatable – because she poked at his wound, sniffed, lost the deep furrow between her eyebrows, and said: “ _Matthew_.”

And that was enough.

Matt groaned, rolled his head on Foggy’s lap, and if Foggy hadn’t pinned him down on the backseat the idiot would have jumped away, or tried to.

“Hey, buddy. How’re you feeling?”

It sounded like he was feeling like shit, from what Foggy could make out.

“Matthew, your friend said you would rather be home, but you need to help us get you there.”

“’m fine.”

“Sure, Matty. Look, you’re going to look extremely drunk and lean on me as much as you can and no one’s going to think it’s weird, alright?” It sure beat dragging Daredevil through the Kitchen in full regalia and in broad daylight, at any rate. Foggy was, for once, grateful for the pajamas-and-ropes look; it was way easier to pass off as a regular outfit (especially when it was a toned-down version without the boots or ropes; Foggy was grateful for that too). It meant he didn’t have to steal from other folks’ clotheslines; Foggy hadn’t quite forgiven himself (or Matt) for that yet.

Matt was mostly dead weight, but he still more or less put a foot in front of the other and with Sister Maggie helping, they dragged him up to the top floor. Foggy helped him on the couch and the sister put her first aid kit on the coffee table.

“Here,” she said, holding out a pair of scissors. “For his shirt.”

“Right.” It was already torn beyond any hope of salvation, so Foggy didn't go for the seams and simply cut it open. He hissed when the extent of Matt’s injuries was revealed; his torso was every color but that of healthy, unbruised flesh; there were reds and yellows and greens and purple all over his skin where it wasn’t cut open, scraped, or covered with tacky blood, to say nothing of the scars new and old. “Holy shit, bud.”

“I have to clean your cuts and redo your stitches, Matthew.”

Matt hummed, as if he didn’t really care.

“You were supposed to stay home,” Foggy couldn’t help saying.

“Heard the girl.”

“Yeah, of course you did. And you were caught on video, too.”

“Someone’s not being stealthy.” Snip, snip, thread, knot, snip snip. The sister looked a bit too skilled at this, for a nun.

“And it’s not particularly flattering; he’s staggering on a roof looking like he’s going to keel over at any moment.”

“Which happened.”

“Which happened.”

Foggy left the couch to go through the kitchen; Matt probably needed water, food, something. The fridge only had beer and the cupboards some rice and pasta, not even a can of soup. Maybe he could get some takeout?

“Clients,” Matt said.

“Karen’s handling it.”

“’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Well, it wasn’t, but the meeting with Mrs. Park was at 3pm; Karen could woman the office until then.

Matt waved a weak hand in the air. “Notes,” he managed. “Took notes.”

“Stop moving,” Maggie said, and Matt’s hand flopped back down. “Are those notes on your laptop, or are they voice notes?”

“Sent ‘em.”

“I didn’t receive anything, buddy.” Unless… Foggy took his phone out. “Karen? Yeah, it’s me. Matt’s home and mostly alive, but he won’t come to the office for a while. Uh, did he send you… right, yes, that. Can you forward them to me?”

Foggy made plans with Karen and promised he’d be there for Mrs Park, and read the notes on his phone as Sister Maggie cleaned Matt’s skin with some wet cloths and more patience than he’d have expected from her. Thirty minutes later Matt was clean, in bed, and sipping some sort of broth that Maggie had called St. Agnes for. The sister who brought it hadn’t batted an eye at the scene of Maggie sitting on a youngish, but seriously beaten up, guy’s bed and holding one of his hands in hers. Maybe the entire orphanage had gotten used to that sort of thing, while Matt had been recovering. Or maybe it was a Catholic thing? They did worship Jesus dying on a cross after all, the whole bloody and suffering thing was their kryptonite.

“I should go,” Foggy said. He didn’t really want to, but someone had to pull their weight at the firm. Matt’s notes would help, at least.

Maggie’s hand hovered over Matt’s head before going back to her lap. “Matthew. Can I trust you will rest, now?”

Matt looked a bit rebellious, but his droopy eyes were a pretty good clue as to what he was going to do for the time being.

“I’ll come back tonight,” Foggy added, “what do you say?” Maybe spend the night, make sure he wasn’t left to his own devices. Mr. _I’m Fine_ would protest, but he wasn’t going to get any choice. Yeah, that was it: go home, get a quick shower and fresh clothes, go work at Nelson’s Meats Slash Law Firm, and then head straight back here. And then it would be the weekend and everything would be fine, especially Matt. Right? Yeah, it sounded like a plan.

The sister watched him with a calculating look on her face, as if she was reading his thoughts. Who knew, with nuns? Maybe she was. Matt had often said he used to have suspicions about the nuns at St. Agnes, when he was a kid there.

“Don’t need,” Matt mumbled, not entirely asleep but about three-fourths of the way there. The sister took the mug from his hands before his fingers slackened entirely; her face softened when his head fell back on the pillow.

“He’s much easier to deal with when he’s asleep,” she said. “Or, I regret to say, unconscious.”

“He’s a handful.”

“Well, he’s always been.” She stood up. “I need to get back to St. Agnes, but I think he’ll be fine for a few hours.”

“I’ll come back after work.”

“And you’ll stay.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah, I will.”

“You know where to find me; I’ll always come.” _I haven’t always_ , she didn’t say, but Foggy could read between the lines on her forehead. She was a Catholic nun _and_ Matt Murdock’s mother; she had to carry an unhealthy amount of guilt, right? “Matthew values you very much. He needs people in his corner; I hope he’s learned that lesson, now.”

Foggy smiled. “Boxing metaphors a family thing?” Oh _shit_. “Uh, I mean – I’m sorry, I, uh…”

She raised her eyebrows, a bittersweet tilt to her lips. “Well, that _is_ how his father and I met, after all. Mopping sweat and blood off his face.”

 _Sexy_. Well, maybe it _was_ sexy for a nun; they spent hours thinking about mangled saints in agony, right? Foggy managed to keep those thoughts inside and looked down at Matt, now fully asleep. They probably wouldn't have that conversation anywhere near him, if he weren’t. “Murdocks, I guess.”

“Oh yes, Murdocks. Oozing blood and charm day in, night out. But they’re hard to resist.” Her eyes bored into Foggy’s.

“I, uh, yeah.” He was unnerved; something stirring in him that he hadn’t really ever wanted to consider for many, many years. That he’d shoved down way ago, when they’d still been young and bright and stupid students.“So, I’ll be back later today. Got to go now!”

He fled, like a coward.

Well, he’d never pretended to be any sort of ninja, after all.

Maybe – and here Foggy was going out on a limb, but just, maybe – Catholics were onto something, with their blood-and-pain-are-sexy obsession. That was not the kind of thoughts Foggy wanted to entertain while Matt was slowly (and not very effectually) extricating himself from the covers, but there they were. The thoughts. He hadn’t asked for them; what he needed now was patience in the face of Matt’s insistence on getting up and leaving the bed.

“What do you need, Matt?” Maybe it was just his bladder. A guy had to piss sometimes, right?

“Let you down,” he said. “Mrs. Park.”

Well, Mrs. Park might not have felt confident in her choice of lawyers if one of them had been bleeding all over the place, but Foggy kept that thought to himself. “What about Mrs. Park? Karen and I were there and I had your notes; it’s all good.”

“I promised,” Matt mumbled into the blanket. At least he’d stopped trying to get up – for now.

“Yeah, you did.” Foggy shook his head and walked around the bed. “I’m stealing a pillow, alright? So,” he continued after settling down next to Matt. Well, next to the lump under the covers that was Matt. “You promised to open up, and you promised to be more reliable, and you promised to try and be more careful.”

“I fucked up.”

“I guess you did, this time. But you _are_ trying and that counts, Matty.”

“Not hard enough.”

“Okay, new rule: putting yourself down when you fuck up is another no-no. Everyone fucks up; what’s important is admitting it and working on not doing it again, alright?”

Matt didn’t answer; he only curled up a bit more. All Foggy could see now was a tuft of hair poking out. It shouldn't have been cute, really. It _shouldn't_.

“We’re both working at it, you know?”

That got him a confused noise. “You? Fog…”

“Yeah, me. Look, I didn’t always try to understand; I was so pissed at you, Matt. But I think… you can’t turn your ears off, and you hear people in need, and you have those skills, and not going out and doing what you do would kill you. I get it. I wish you were more careful but I guess that’s not in your genes, right? So I…” Foggy sighed. “Daredevil does good and Daredevil is a part of you that matters, so I’m not asking you to stop and be someone you’re not; it was stupid of me to want that. And now you’re trusting me with all of you it’s – I was so angry that you hadn’t before, because how could you not? But now we’re talking about it and… that’s really good.”

“Still. I’m sorry,” Matt said.

“I know you are. But so am I, okay? I understand why we got where we were, but we’re… we’re better now, way better. Stronger.”

“You followed me into our first firm because I asked you to,” Matt told his pillow. “And then you left the corner office you’d finally landed, and I’m not even paying you back for all of that.”

“I’m much happier doing what we do together than what I had to do at HC&B. It sure is because of you, and I’m grateful for that. Grateful, Matt.”

“But you’re angry at me.”

“How would you know, buddy? You reading minds now?”

“I know it creeps you out.”

“You’re… not reading minds, are you?” Matt shook his head. “Okay, good. So, what? Come on, spill.”

“Your, uh. Your heart’s beating faster sometimes.”

“Would it be right when I’ve had the workout of my life trying to find you on Hell’s Kitchen’s roofs?”

“Yeah.” There was a smile in Matt’s voice, Foggy could hear it. Now, if only he could see it… “But right now, too.”

Uh oh. “And what else could it be?”

“Uh, fear?” Lump-Matt jerked and turned to face Foggy, getting himself even more entangled in the covers. “Fogs, you’re not afraid of me, are you?”

“No, I’m not. Now, what else can it be?” In for a penny, right?

“Exercise, or excitement, or arousal, or… a strong emotion.” He sniffed. “You’re not aroused.”

“Jesus, Matt, don’t do that! Ew.” Foggy frowned. “Wait. Do you always know when people around you…?”

Now he could see Matt’s face, he didn’t miss the quick _oh, shit_ expression that washed over it.

“Okay, I really didn’t want to know that, but I guess you can’t help it. That must actually suck for you, yeah? Like, _awkward_.”

Matt’s lips twitched. “Yeah. Well, I definitely caught on quickly that it can happen any time to any one, and that it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Man, life on campus must have been _terrible_.”

“Also in the orphanage; there were quite a few of us teenage boys in there at all times.”

“Damn, yeah, can imagine. No, scratch that, can’t imagine. That’s horrifying, in fact.”

“You get used to it. Everybody’s horny around you, all the time; at least that’s what it felt like.” Matt was actually smiling now; looked like the crisis had been averted. “I always knew when you were lying about study groups and going to see one of your many girlfriends instead.”

“Hey!”

“See? I couldn't tell you then, you’d have asked for a new roommate.”

“No I wouldn’t.”

Matt’s smile softened. “I didn’t want to risk that, Fogs. Losing you. I never wanted that.”

“Yeah, I know. I never wanted it too.”

“I thought it’d be safer for you, you know? If I disappeared.”

“Don’t ever do that again, okay?”

“Okay.” Matt’s head rolled against Foggy’s arm, which wasn’t making anything flutter in Foggy’s chest at all. “Love you, Fogs.”

Aw, _hell_. “Love you too, buddy.”

Foggy watched Matt blink more and more slowly, until finally his eyes remained closed.

He remembered those early college days, when he’d been crushing hard on Matt and everybody knew it but Matt himself. Now they were finally honest with each other, now they were both single again, maybe it was time to explore that for good. All that _We’re just good friends_ shit… well yeah, they were. But there had been something else right there for the taking for so many years, and Foggy thought he wanted to take it, for real.

And they could, tonight, start with sharing the bed.


End file.
